The Life Force That Flows Through Music

I’ve been thinking a lot about creativity — where it comes from, how it manifests, and why it flows through certain people.

I feel incredibly grateful that music has been a constant creative force in my life. Even as a child, I experienced it vividly. In grade school, I had perfect pitch and could figure out music by ear, write it down, and play it back. I always had melodies running through my head, often distracting me from lessons that felt less inspiring. When I began piano at five and switched to guitar at seven, I finally had instruments through which that creativity could express itself.

As a kid, I wrote songs and even recorded some pop tracks — mostly imitating sounds I heard on the radio. But when I sat at the piano or picked up my guitar and played freely, without any plan, something different emerged. The music that flowed out was intuitive, harmonically rich, almost “new age” before I even knew what that meant. Looking back, I realize now that those spontaneous improvisations were the beginnings of my true voice. In fact I have released a few songs that were written in my late teens. Lilac Skies, for example is a song that I wrote for an off-Broadway play at 19 years old, and reimagined for my album, Lilac Skies. I wrote Preparing for Flight from my Heart Awakening album some 33 years ago for a JVC Jazz Festival National Ad campaign which featured the great Jon Faddis on trumpet, and reimagined it for release.

After releasing nine albums and EPs, I still reflect on creativity. I oftentimes wonder: How long will it last? How long can any artist continue creating music that feels inspired, fresh and authentic?

More and more, I’ve come to see creativity as part of a greater Life Force — the same force that flows through nature. Nature’s life force carries a purity and perfection that I can sense when I'm quiet enough to listen.

I see this Life Force everywhere. It’s the astounding intelligence that turns a single cell into a fully formed human being with consciousness, mind, talents and personality in just nine months — really creating vessels for its own expression. It’s the miracle of perennial plants and trees, growing in harmony with the seasons. Even through the most brutal winters, when the earth is buried under snow, Nature waits patiently, gathering strength, and rises again each spring, summer, and fall. I'm often incredulous.

And this same Life Force moves through every living being. It is infinite, powerful, unifying — and the invisible thread that connects us all simply because .... we are alive.

The Life Force drives me. Like a tree drawing nourishment from its roots, I feel this energy moving through me like wind and expressing itself as music. Music is my canvas — where that inner silence transforms into melody, harmony, and rhythm.

For me, the creative process always begins in silence. I learned that from Guru Sri Chinmoy, who showed me how to manifest one's consciousness through music. He played music as a lofty expression of his Life Force.

My Life Force rises within me and shapes itself into musical ideas. These ideas flow when I’m writing or recording.

This is how I experience the Life Force: deeply personal, yet it is universally shared.

How does the Life Force flow through you?

xoxo

Shambhu

Listen to my new single, Awakened Dreams.